10 Things To Do Before I Die.
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Ted Burger's best friends, Mark and Nikki, are worried about him. If he doesn't learn to take risks, they could be the only ones to ever see the talented musician with a swirling vortex of ideas, hidden behind Ted's clownish shenanigans. To help him out, they come up with a list of 10 things to do in the 24 hour window of opportunity offered when his parents are out of town on the first night of Spring Break.
That's 24 hours to rob a bank, visit Africa, jam with his favorite band, Shakes the Clown, onstage and party with them afterwards, and lose his virginity -- and still be only half-way through. Then things take a serious turn -- Mark and Nicky hear that a disgruntled employee at their regular hang-out, the Circle Eat Diner, has poisoned the fries, and conclude Ted's stomach cramps and dizziness mean he will be dead in 24 hours. Ted decides to carry on with the list, now "10 Things to Do Before I Die", but finds that the real challenge is not crossing off the 10 items, but facing up to the lessons he learns along the way.
The title of this book doesn't promise laughs, but they are there. If you can get by the morbid premise of the story, you are in for an entertaining read. Ted Burger is an engaging character with a "nutty, Borscht Belt sense of humour" and slightly eccentric musical choices. He is gifted with genuine insights into his own behaviour and that of others which gradually lead him down the road to maturity. In Ehrenhaft's hands, Ted's predicament and his reaction to it are believable enough to let the story happen, but not so numbingly, bleakly real that they shut down all our (and Ted's) fun. As a what-if scenario, the question of how you would spend your last day on Earth has been around for a long time. Ehrenhaft deserves credit for a thoughtful, book-length answer to the question; by the end of the book, Ted has become more real and likeable character to himself, and to the reader too.
